Ghost in the Machine
by jtav
Summary: All Lawrence Shepard wants is for Miranda's ghost to leave him be and defeat Cerberus and the Reapers. But in a world where a corpse can be transformed back into a man and AIs can fall in love, the lines between living and dead can be blurry. ME3 spoilers
1. Prelude

_Here there be spoilers. While I have altered things considerably, this is based on information in the leaked files. _

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><p>Before the Collectors attacked the first <em>Normandy, <em>I'd never had any trouble telling what was alive and what wasn't. Then I died. Not "my heart stopped for a minute, and I was saved by modern medicine." Dead. Joined the choir invisible. Dr. Michel told me I was approximately eighty percent cybernetics. I tried not to think about whether that made me a man or a robot. Amazing how you could ignore existential questions by blowing up a bunch of husks. That was before the incident on Mars that had given my starship a body and more issues than _Model Starships Today. _Cerberus sent an android to infiltrate a research team. The android nearly killed Ash. Liara nearly scrapped the android. EDI decided to possess the android. I got drunk. Great story, isn't it?

EDI looked like a gorgeous human woman from a distance. Ample breasts, smooth skin, and a sculpted body straight out of my fantasies. It was only when I got close that the skin revealed itself to be nanofiber and her golden hair proved itself to be a single solid unit. The stories Dad had read me when he was on leave when I was a kid always warned against trusting things that looked human but weren't, and EDI made my skin crawl despite myself.

"Commander, I require your assistance with a personal matter." There was more inflection in her voice these days—a side effect of seizing control of the Cerberus infiltrator android—but still not quite enough. "I find myself thinking excessively about Jeff, particularly about the idea of kissing him and doing other things humans commonly term romantic." Her mechanical lips twisted into a mockery of a frown. "Romantic feelings are logical for organics as they help ensure continued reproduction. They provide no such benefit in my case. Why do I have them? They are intrusive."

A dull ache settled in my temples. I'd lost my mind. The Cat Six discharge I'd narrowly avoided after Torfan had finally caught up with me. That was the only possible explanation. "I need a drink." I turned on my heel to exit the AI core.

"You are agitated," EDI said placidly.

"My ship has just confessed to having the hots for my pilot, my _human _pilot. You're damn right I'm agitated." The ache intensified. "Any particular reason you're telling me this? I thought Cortez was helping you navigate human interaction?" The poor guy had volunteered, and I couldn't even blame it on her physique turning him into a gibbering idiot.

"He became very embarrassed. I believe he is shy when discussing personal matters. Given your romantic attachment to Operative Lawson before her death—"

Ice water flooded my veins the way it always did when someone mentioned Miranda's name. My heart beat faster. The sound of groaning metal filled my ears. Her death had given Miranda the power over me that she'd wanted so badly in life. I wondered if that control chip of hers would have screwed with me the way the sound of her name did now.

It took a second for my brain to come back to the real world. "Romantic attachment? You think Miranda and I—that we—"

"That you were involved in a romantic relationship," she said in the same calm tone. "I have been studying a great deal of human media in an attempt to understand my feelings for Jeff. The novels were very instructive. Your relationship with Operative Lawson shares several traits with that of the protagonists. The yelling, the cutting remarks, the coldness on her part and the hostility on yours."

I laughed. It was the kind of laugh you did when the world stopped making sense and you were trying not to go completely crazy. "You're getting advice from romance novels?"

"Would you suggest mysteries instead?"

"No, I—why are we even talking about this? Miranda and I hated each other." Or at least I had been pretty sure she had hated me. I still hated her. We had been mutually comprehensible and incompatible. I wouldn't play her little game and be buddies with Cerberus no matter how many nice toys she and her boss gave me. Nothing they did would ever make me forget Kahoku or that she had wanted to turn me into her personal slave. And then she'd decided to screw with me one last time on the Collector Base.

"Please, just regulate the oxygen flow or whatever it is you do." This time I did leave.

My muscles clenched and I felt like an assault rifle about to overheat. The sound of groaning metal grew louder, but this time there was a scream to go with it. Ever since Torfan, sometimes my brain wanted to remember things whether I did or not. I'd learned to pick my battles. If I fought it now, maybe I couldn't fight it later when I was under fire. So I let memory take over.

_The Illusive Man was the only guy I knew who could look smug even in a hologram. "Shepard, you've done the impossible. The Collector Base is ours."_

_"Still have to blow it up." Behind me, Tali primed the charges._

_"That won't be necessary. A radiation pulse could eliminate the Collectors but leave the base and its technology intact. This is our chance to use the Reapers technology against them. Think of the potential!"_

_"The potential to get indoctrinated or the potential to oppress other species? I know exactly what will happen if Cerberus gets its hands on this technology."_

_His eyes glowed a furious blue. "I didn't discard you. Don't be so quick to discard me. Only Cerberus can win this war and assure humanity's triumph."_

"_Domination, you mean. You want what you've always wanted. Power. Tali, activate the timer."_

_The Illusive Man rounded on Miranda, his movements jerky and wild. "Miranda, stop him!"_

_Tali and I exchanged a look, and my hand went to my sidearm. So this was how it ended. The Cerberus loyalist would finally stab me in the back. I could probably shoot her before she drew her gun. I'd certainly envisioned this day often enough, except she usually waited until after the mission was over before reminding me of her true loyalties. Not when I was bone tired and had just lost my crew and all but a handful of the ground team. You'd think even Miranda would have had enough death today._

_She didn't answer. I tensed. She'd shoot me any minute now. Why wasn't she shooting?_

_"I gave you an order, Miranda." _

_She shook her head. For the first time, Miranda looked older than her age, not younger. "Consider this my resignation."_

She'd died a few minutes later. I never did find out why Miranda had resigned rather than kill me that day. My brain kept conjuring her ghost to give an answer, but all I could do was relive the mission minute by agonizing minute. I thought I had her pegged, Cerberus loyalist to the last. But no, she chose me over them. Me.

The intercom sprang to life. "Shepard, it's Liara. I think I've got something."

Thank God, a sane person. Thank God, a person. Liara had done a better job exorcising Miranda's ghost than I had. There was no trace of her presence in the quarters now. The leather couches and chairs were gone, and the scent of jasmine had been replaced by the clean smell of pine. Banks of computers filled the room, the vast network of the Shadow Broker shrunk down to travel size. She looked tired, but we were all tired these days.

"Got a lead on our illusive friend?" I slouched against the bulkhead. The Illusive Man shouldn't have gotten under my skin like he did. I'd expected him to come after me, but working with the Reapers was a bit much even for him. I had believed him when he said he wanted to fight the Reapers; it was all the stuff he was planning to do in the meantime that I had a problem with. And thanks to EDI, I knew how essential he was to the smooth operation of Cerberus. Cerberus only had one head, not three. Eliminate him, and the organization would be directionless.

"I think so. Have you heard of Sanctuary?"

"The refugee camp set up on Horizon? There were ads all over the Citadel."

"Well, every week it receives medical supplies from New Dawn Pharmaceuticals and the Milky Way Foundation. Free supplies. There are also an unusually large number of transmissions coming in over a secure channel, though what that channel is changes frequently."

"So, we have a refugee camp getting free supplies from two Cerberus fronts and somebody there is sending out coded messages? Yep, that sounds suspicious. I'll tell Joker to set a course."

"There is one other thing." She swallowed. "I've traced the funding of Sanctuary. Henry Lawson is the primary benefactor."

"Miranda's father?" My voice came out in a croak. As much as I'd hated Miranda, we'd been in agreement about her dad. People like me got our hands dirty, so it was really important to know where to draw the line. I'd kidnapped people in the course of interrogations and assassinations, but never just so I could have control of them. "Something tells me he isn't doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Tell Joker to double-time it."

She looked at me, her gaze tinged with pity that she was trying and failing to hide. Liara might have been a badass information broker, but she was still crap at hiding her feelings. Or we'd linked brains once too often. "Are you okay with this?"

"With taking down a genuine scumbag and probably killing him? I live for these kinds of bright line cases."

"You know what I mean."

I did. "I'm okay. Now, try to get some sleep T'Soni. Big day tomorrow, and I'll want you groundside."

By the time I got to the captain's quarters, I was exhausted, but I knew I wouldn't go to sleep. When I was growing up, the station chaplain had made much of the communion of saints. The dead never truly left us and were active and involved in our lives, praying and interceding for us. Sometimes they even showed up as apparitions. My Catholicism was something I only trotted out for Easter and Christmas these days, but the idea stayed with me. Maybe it would explain why Miranda and all the rest of them kept bouncing around my head. They were ghosts that haunted me. Ashley, Kaidan, Miranda, all demanding something from me that I never gave them in life.

"If I kill him for you, will you leave me alone? I'm sorry I couldn't save you. My hand slipped and—" I shook my head. My ghosts had never cared about excuses.

_Miranda_

They called me the ghost of Cerberus past. I was an artifact, the relic of a time when Cerberus still believed in the defense and preservation of humanity. I was the only person on the station who wasn't indoctrinated. One of the few benefits of my current condition. A machine was immune to indoctrination. There were those who said I wasn't really Miranda Lawson at all, just an AI with all her memories until the end of the Lazarus Project. The closest thing I had to a body was a hologram projector. Blocks in my programming prevented me from acting against Cerberus.

The Illusive Man had never been one to quibble over metaphysics. He needed Miranda Lawson's expertise, and Cerberus had neither the time nor resources to commit to another Lazarus Project. A solution had been found. I couldn't blame him for that much. I had done the same to Shepard on his orders. I still thought. I still loved Oriana. My interior world was identical to the one I had had before my accident. Pondering anything else led to madness, if machines could go mad, and I had much larger concerns. Besides, there were those who said my genetics had made me inhuman even before my body had died.

No, the trouble wasn't the resurrection. The trouble was the helplessness. I'd seen the blue and silver metal that snaked around our soldiers' bodies. Saren had been similarly deformed. It was one thing to use Reaper technology, as we had with EDI. We had done more than that. We had become our enemy, indoctrinating soldiers for our use. Sometimes I feared it was even worse than that. Kai Leng had replaced me in the Illusive Man's favor, but I still heard of our operations. Killing a krogan female on Sur'Kesh. Assassinating Councilor Sparatus. Our every action seemed calculated not to advance humanity, but to divide and destabilize the galaxy. We were doing the Reapers work for them, and I could do nothing but watch.

The door opened, filling the station's AI core with a harsh light. Leng entered, nibbling on a nutrient bar. His favorite way of psychologically tormenting me. I remembered eating and drinking, of course, but they were no more than words. My senses had narrowed to sight and sound alone. I remembered loving coffee and even still had words to describe the taste, but I had no more a frame of reference than a blind man who said that the sky was blue. It was maddening. To only half-remember the sheer physicality of riding Jacob or the warmth of Oriana in my arms as I held her for the first and last time. I'd always considered myself cerebral, but the pleasures of the mind were empty without a body to anchor them. But I didn't need a body to be useful to Cerberus.

"Lawson," he said between bites, "your estimates were off. Gamma squad got wiped out by the Alliance. I thought you said the new enhancements would give them double the reaction time?"

"I said that reaction time would improve somewhere in the range of 40 to 100%. They performed within parameters. The technology is untested. It's not my fault that they performed at the low end of the scale." The truth was that 40% was closer to the average, and I'd manipulated a few of the samples specifically to create outliers. When your programming prevented you from lying, you got very good at manipulating the truth. "Maybe you should blame the leadership. It must be difficult transitioning from petty thug to squad leader.

Leng's eyes glowed behind the visor. It was Lazarus technology that had restored his sight and ability to walk after David Anderson left his body broken beyond repair. More proof, as if it was needed, that even the best technology can be twisted. "The boss thinks it's because the latest crop is defective. They don't make refugees like they used to. Should have known better than to hand something this important over to a Lawson."

"You're being more obscure than usual, Leng." I'd hated that about him on the rare occasions we have been forced to work together. He hardly ever came straight to a point. He enjoyed taunting and mockery too much. And I was everything he was sure Cerberus wasn't.

"Oh, that's right. You don't know." His lips curved into a faint smile, and I knew this was the real reason he'd come. "Henry Lawson is our newest cell leader."

"Preposterous. He despises you and has for twenty years."

"He did," Leng said lightly. "Amazing what handing over the long-lost daughter will do for a man's cooperation. Oriana should be settling in nicely on Sanctuary."

_No, they wouldn't. They promised._ Except of course they would. What was kidnapping and betrayal to an organization that indoctrinated its own members. And they had other ways of ensuring my loyalty. What was left of my world fractured into a thousand pieces. Rage, or what passed for it, overwhelmed me. I wished for the power to cry, to punch Leng, to do something. I'd kill them. I'd find a way to rescue Oriana. I opened my mouth to tell Leng that, but nothing came out. Threats were another thing beyond me now. "Go to hell, Leng."

"I'm being sent to scare Lawson into efficiency. Close enough." He finished the nutrient bar. "Wonder if that sister of yours would be willing to entertain me? Just as gorgeous as you were, and I hear she isn't nearly as bitchy."

I didn't dignify that with a response. Leng had never shown sexual or romantic interest in anyone or anything for all the years I'd known him. Oriana was safe from that particular terror. There were only millions of others she had to worry about. I had failed her. Utterly. And I could no longer even breathe properly. My little sister was in the clutches of the monster I had spent my entire life protecting her from. I had pledged my life to Cerberus to keep her safe. Only later had I come to believe in what I thought they were. And all that was for nothing. I had nothing anymore.

Nothing left to lose either. My processors supplied the thought with startling alacrity, Humans had an innate desire to live. AIs were created for a specific purpose. What had been my purpose when I was flesh and blood? To advance and protect humanity and to protect Oriana. Cerberus had betrayed the first, and I had failed in the second. Except… except I still had vengeance, didn't I? The basest of all human motivations, but still a motivation. I could hinder Cerberus. Leng had confirmed that much. What else would these blocks allow me to do? They were blunt instruments that only prevented me from doing or saying certain things. They didn't prevent me from thinking. And think I could. Perhaps more than think. The worst they could do was deactivate me, and that would only be mind catching up with body. I'd died on one suicide mission. One more made no difference.

_For humanity. For Oriana. _"Go. I have work to do."

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><p><em>I have changed things from the leak, as I said. Most notably, Sanctuary occurs just after the coup attempt on the Citadel. <em>_Structure will be similar to Shadow War, with every chapter a complete unit.  
><em>


	2. Sanctuary

_Shepard_

I'd always thought batarians were the lowest form of sapient life. Humans weren't saints, but there was a limit to our depravity that the squints didn't share. Zabaleta told me what happened on Mindoir. Putting people in cages and jamming control chips into their brains without anesthesia. Humanity had learned to suppress that part of its nature. Or so I'd thought. Sanctuary cured me of that spot of racism.

Refuse littered the floor of the opened cells. Refugees crowded around me, and the stink of unwashed bodies was nearly overpowering. Their faces were dirty, their cheeks gaunt. It was the eyes that got to me the most. Some—the kids, mostly—looked at me like I was their personal Jesus. Most, though, looked at me with cold, dead eyes. I'd saved their bodies, but the brain was long gone. I'd seen that look way too often after Torfan.

I looked through the glass separating us from the next room. There was nothing in there except Dragon's Teeth, more than I'd ever seen in one place. The guards housed the refugees like cattle and dropped them on to the spikes en masse. Not for the Reapers, oh no. This was the source of the Illusive Man's private army.

I always knew he was power-hungry and ruthless, but this was something else. The Collectors had been mindless slaves. What was his excuse? As for Henry Lawson… I cast my eyes heavenward. "I'm going to kill him when I find him. Painfully. I hope you're happy with that."

"Please do. I don't think my father could buy his way out of this, but I don't really want to test that." Oriana's voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It was as clipped and polished as Miranda's, but the accent was all wrong. Everything was all wrong. Her skin was tan instead of deathly pale, and her hair was cut into a bob. It was as if some genie had heard my wish for Miranda's resurrection, but couldn't be bothered to get the details right. At least she was safe and not a husk or a corpse. I hadn't screwed that up.

"Until you do find him, will this help?" She removed an OSD from her pocket and smiled at me. It wasn't her sister's smile, tinged with irony and some private misery. Oriana's smile, tentative as it was, was the smile of a woman accustomed to being happy. "I'm pretty good with computers, a lot better than he thought I was. The scientists here were meticulous about keeping notes. Maybe you can use this to help those poor people?" Naked hope shone in her eyes.

Another difference between the twins. Miranda would have written off the victims of indoctrination. Hell, she probably would have executed all the refugees here just to be on the safe side. I took the OSD anyway. The people Cerberus was using for its army were probably gone for good, but there might be something else useful in the data. Clues as to exactly what Cerberus' plans were. Locations of other facilities like this one.

"Found the bastard!" James' voice was triumphant. "Panic room one level down from where you are."

"Is he subdued?"

There was a grunt of pain somewhere in the background. "He's subdued."

"I'll be right there."

James had lashed Lawson to a leather chair. Lawson sported an impressive bruise on the right side of his face, but there were no other visible signs of injury. Just as well. I needed to interrogate him before I slit his throat. His grey hair was plastered to his scalp, and his suit was wrinkled. He had given his daughters his jaw and high cheekbones. And his eyes. That same blue-gray mixture. The first time I'd seen Miranda's eyes, I'd been convinced it was a dye. Another stupid thing I was wrong about.

"Commander Shepard." His voice was calm, as if we were about to discuss the stock market. As if he didn't see the knife in my hand. "First Nos Astra. Now this. Do you enjoy frustrating my plans?"

"Only the ones that involve kidnapping and mass murder."

He sighed. "Says the Butcher of Torfan. Hypocrisy doesn't become you, Commander."

He wanted to play the Butcher card? I could work with that. I tossed the knife from hand to hand, but Lawson still didn't react. "You're awfully calm considering you're tied up, and I'm the guy with the knife."

"This is not the first time someone has threatened to kill me. And my life has never been important. Only my legacy. Cerberus assured me I could keep Oriana close at hand. I can keep her safe in a way that false family can't."

"And all you had to do was to kill a few thousand people."

"Genetic mongrels who never did a thing of significance in their lives until I made them useful to Cerberus." He sneered. "You put down the runts of a litter so that the healthy pups can get enough nourishment. People aren't so very different." Lawson cocked his head thoughtfully. "You and I aren't so very different either, come to think of it. You certainly have no trouble sacrificing those under your command. Did you even try to save my daughter?"

The ghosts took over again.

_Metal shrieked and groaned as the platform tilted sharply to the left. I held on, barely, but Miranda tumbled to the ground. Down she slid toward the abyss. I dove for her. She couldn't die, not until she'd explained why she'd chosen to save me. My fingers closed around hers—almost. She didn't scream as she fell. Just looked at me with surprise. I screamed enough for the both of us._

"Loco!" James' voice was enough to bring me back to the real world. My hands were around Lawson's throat, and he was beginning to turn an ugly shade of blue. I dropped my hands away. Lawson choked and sputtered like a drowning man. I looked from him to my hands and back again. Damn him for making me lose it. Damn me for losing it in the first place.

"What was she to you?" Lawson rasped. "A lover?" His eyes narrowed. "No, something else entirely. Someone whose blood is on your hands. Well, then. Perhaps we can make a deal."

"What the hell are you talking about?" No way was I letting him buy his way out of this. He'd done it once too often already. "_I wasn't the first he made, just the first he kept. So don't you dare judge me, __C__ommander."_

"Did you think I did all this just for Oriana? She was the spare, and her brain was filled with nonsense by that fake family Cerberus found for her. Miranda was my masterpiece. She's the one that raised the dead, after all. That's what Cerberus promised me in exchange for all this. Both my daughters returned to me. Oriana now and Miranda after the war was won."

That wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. Even if Lawson had the money, even if he could dredge up the expertise… "Miranda's body was destroyed along with the Collector base."

"Not an insurmountable problem, not with the technology we have at hand or will once we've finished analyzing Reaper remains. Clone a body using the technology that created that krogan of yours, reconstruct the mind, and install a control chip to make sure she's more pliable this time around. And all I had to do was provide an army. Can you blame a father for choosing his daughter?"

_A tyrant for choosing his property over people._ But if Miranda could be brought back… It was impossible. It had to be. Resurrecting Miranda would take a miracle, and I'd never gotten a miracle no matter how hard I prayed for them. But I couldn't stop myself from hoping. "What do you want?" The words escaped my mouth before I could stop them, and I hated myself for that. I'd come here for retribution, not to make deals.

"My life. Let me go, and I will disappear for a time. Should you manage to succeed in your quixotic quest to unite the lesser races and defeat the Reapers, I'll be more than happy to bankroll a Lazarus Project of my own." He smiled. "And Oriana. I must continue to have custody of Oriana. I've spent twenty years searching for her. I won't give her up now. I can still make her worthy of her genes."

_I'll do anything for Oriana. Anything. Even beg you for help. _A good commanding officer did his best to fulfill the wishes of those he was about to send a death. The wishes of those who had died were sacred. And I knew what Miranda would ask of me here. "Thank you for making this easy."

The knife was in and out before Lawson even knew what happened. I didn't have Tali's tech smarts or Liara's biotics, but I'd always been really good at killing people. My one talent. James' eyes went wide, but he didn't say anything. I didn't spare Lawson a second glance. The bastard didn't deserve it, and I had more important things to do.

Lawson had offered to trade one daughter for the other. It could've been crap. If I had a credit for every cock and bull story I've been fed to keep me from shooting someone, I could fund my own Lazarus project. But I needed to know if it was possible, if I could somehow return at least one of my ghosts to the land of the living. I didn't need his money. I had the Shadow Broker. Eldfell-Ashland still owed me for saving them from bankruptcy. I could get money. I just needed to know if it were possible. I patched into the _Normandy._

"Liara, I need everything you have on Lazarus."

It was time to answer some of those existential questions I'd been avoiding.

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><p><em>Apologies for the brevity of this chapter. Future chapters will be in the 5k+ plus range. Now I am going to do something I almost never do: ask your opinion. Do you want a romance between "Miranda" and Shepard?<em>


	3. In Search Of

_Miranda_

The Illusive Man swirled his shot glass before taking a sip. I stared at the glass. I didn't remember the last drink I'd had. Cerberus had chosen not to restore my memories of the time between a few days before the end of Lazarus and my physical death. The project had been too important for me to indulge while working, but surely I'd managed a glass of wine or brandy on shore leave. It was hell not remembering and even worse watching others indulge in pleasures now denied me. The Illusive Man had never struck me as particularly sadistic, which made my current situation even worse. He drank in front of me not because he wanted to see me suffer the way Leng did. He drank because he always did, and it was no longer worth the effort to consider my feelings.

He let the silence linger, and I took the opportunity to study him. The QEC gave him a washed out appearance, but he was otherwise unchanged. There was no clue as to what had made him change so drastically so quickly. His eyes glowed with the same harsh blue light, but that was nothing new. I hadn't always worked for a madman. The Illusive Man could be harsh in his methods, but his goals had been noble. But idealism had been replaced by mindless brutality, just as Leng had replaced me as the Illusive Man's right hand.

"Your father is dead," the Illusive Man said softly. "I thought you'd want to know."

"How?" Father dead, at long last. What little affection I had for him had been ground away by the time I was fourteen, but he had always been there: the demon who plagued my sleeping and waking hours equally, the little voice in the back of my head that told me I still belonged to him. And now he was gone.

"Commander Shepard. He also managed to destroy our operation on Horizon."

"And Oriana?" If she had died in the fighting, if she had even been hurt…

"Your sister was gone by the time Leng and his men arrived. I regret that she had to be there at all, but the survival and triumph of the human race depends on our actions in the next few months. After that debacle with David Anderson and the turians, Henry Lawson and his work on Sanctuary was vital." The sympathy evaporated from his voice. "Commander Shepard destroyed that hard work. It will be that much harder for us to find suitable recruits to defend humanity and secure its advancement."

He took another drink. "You were right about Shepard three years ago. As valuable as stopping the Collectors was, he cost us even more. I think the time has come for a concerted effort to remove the problem."

Assassination. They were going to assassinate Shepard. I had doubted him, yes. He had destroyed two of our cells in the six months before his death, and knew of several other projects. Then-Captain Kahoku had been the only reason he had retained his commission after Torfan. His psychological profile painted the portrait of a man stubborn and unyielding, even brutish, with a nearly fanatical loyalty to the Alliance. He might be unwilling to work with Cerberus or attempt to kill our officers outright. And that was assuming Lazarus went according to plan. Running that project had been a bit like operating the relay network. We understood that a particular piece of technology worked, but not how or why. One awakened on the operating table might be little more than a mindless beast, fit only to be put down. That was why I had pushed for the control chip.

I had never doubted his commitment to the battle against the Reapers. He was proving me right on that score. The technicians who were my primary company these days were still sane enough to give me fragmentary information about the war. Shepard was seeking resources to complete an ancient weapon called the Crucible that could be the key to defeating the Reapers. He was also working his way across the galaxy and uniting disparate groups—mercenaries and justicars, turians and krogan—into an army. Part of me thought the weapon was merely wishful thinking, but I knew the value of shock troops. Even the most xenophobic member of Cerberus had to realize that the more people who stood united against the Reapers, the better humanity's odds were. Shepard had become the unifying symbol that the Illusive Man had wanted, but he was discarding him.

"Is this wise, sir?" I could question, even if I couldn't disobey. "At the very least, he could provide an invaluable distraction for the Reapers."

"Or he could continue to disrupt our plans. I have the chance to not only ensure humanity's survival, but our place as the preeminent species in the galaxy. Shepard cannot be allowed to interfere with that." He leaned back in his chair. "You know Shepard better than anyone. I want you to come up with a plan for his capture and elimination."

"Yes, sir." The words tumbled out, but my voice had a slightly hollow quality, as it always did when I was acting due to the blocks in my programming instead of my higher-order processes.

"You're doing valuable work for Cerberus. Despite your condition, despite whatever Shepard did to you that made you doubt, I wanted you to know that you're still an asset to humanity." He smiled at me. It was a real smile, the sort I had chased after because they meant he was pleased with me. "The Lazarus Project was the greatest medical achievement in history. Perhaps when this is over, you can reap the rewards of your work." He lifted his glass in a toast. "To your success." The QEC switched off, and I was left alone.

The Illusive Man's drinking in front of me had not been out of malice or callous indifference. It was temptation. The message could hardly have been clearer if he'd spoken it aloud. Kill Shepard, see that Cerberus succeeded, and my body would be returned to me. Whatever madness had afflicted the Illusive Man, he hadn't forgotten that a willing servant was infinitely more valuable than a slave.

I could have simply switched off my own holographic projector and directed the small cameras and microphones to switch to idle, but I didn't. The hologram turned on its heel and walked away as silently as the ghost that I was trying to pretend that I wasn't. The sight before me shifted and changed as I processed only what I could have seen had I been walking back to the AI core and looking at the station with eyes made of flesh and blood. Call it an attempt to retain that nebulous concept called humanity as I pondered the Illusive Man's offer.

I allowed myself to fantasize. My heels could once again clatter on the floor. I could have a glass of wine. '43 Noverian Chardonnay. The taste would be smooth with the slightest hint of oak and fill me with a warmth that made my limbs heavy. I could take a lover. It wouldn't be the mechanical couplings I'd arranged on iPartners in a desperate attempt to have children before time ran out. No, this would be the sheer, glorious,_ physical_ pleasure of sex. And all I had to do was kill one man. Hardly any different from the countless other times I'd killed to preserve my life.

I stopped dead in my physical and mental tracks. One of the technicians responsible for my maintenance stood a short distance in front of me. I liked Edgar insofar as I liked anyone on this station. He wasn't brilliant per se, but he was inquisitive, bright, and eager. He was endlessly fascinated by my existence as an AI designed to mimic a specific person rather than perform a set of well-defined tasks. He'd lost family in the Collector attacks and had joined Cerberus in an effort to do something—anything—to protect other families. Edgar was, in short, my ideal Cerberus recruit.

That hadn't been enough. Edgar's eyes didn't glow the way our frontline soldiers' did, but his skin was crisscrossed by familiar implants. Mere loyalty to humanity was no longer enough. Only the fanaticism created by the Cerberus brand of indoctrination would do. If a mere tech couldn't escape it, then Cerberus' former second-in-command stood no chance. I'd be allowed my pleasures, even my love for Oriana, as long as it was convenient, but my new mental prison would be far more insidious than the blocks I was working around now.

And it wasn't an ordinary man I was being asked to help assassinate. I had given up my chance at a child to helm Lazarus because he was supposed to be humanity's best chance. Shepard had repaid me, knowingly or not, by saving Oriana. And he was fighting the Reapers.

Edgar looked me up and down, his soft brown eyes full of curiosity instead of lust. "You don't need to walk from place to place, you know."

"I needed to think."

His face lit up with understanding. "And you still have the mental wiring to want to take a walk. Fascinating, how human you still are." He blushed. "I—I mean, it's just interesting. You're like a whole new species of person. A synthetic that thinks like an organic. If we could create more like you, humans could live forever by creating AIs of themselves. Kinda. If you don't believe in a soul." The blush deepened. "I'm rambling again, aren't I?"

The hologram smiled at him. "I don't mind." I had been much the same when Lazarus began. If I couldn't have children, then I would find some other way to create life. A corpse would be transformed into a man once more. I would work a miracle, but I would do the gods of old one better. Shepard's cybernetics wouldn't merely restore him to the way he was; he would be improved. He would be able to wield weapons normally designed for krogan and almost immune to poison. This was what Cerberus was for, not the brutality of men like Leng and Raymond Ashe.

I had been a fool for believing that. There was a place for those who wanted to make humanity truly great, but that place was no longer Cerberus, if it had ever been.

"I've been working on tweaking some protocols that'll let you have easier access to the databases. Anything above Secure still requires authorization from the boss, but it'll make your, um, life a bit easier."

"Thank you," I said, and meant it. Even with the blocks, Cerberus had been cautious. When I had been human, I could get almost any data I needed with a snap of my fingers. I hadn't known the details of every cell's operations, but I could request and get results data and intel, and nothing short of a direct order from the Illusive Man could stop me from getting it. Now, it was the reverse. I had to justify having access to even the most trivial information. I depended on gossip to know how the war progressed. Even the reports I'd written while serving as Shepard's executive officer—chronicles that could help fill the gap in my memory between Lazarus and my own rebirth—were off limits. I knew that I had tendered my resignation rather than carry out some unspecified order and that I had fallen to my death not long afterwards. But if Edgar loosened my restraints even slightly, then I could gain a clearer picture of the world outside. Knowledge was power. That was the first thing I'd taught Liara when she'd come to me for help on her stupid quest for vengeance.

"I'll make it up to you," I said, my eyes trained on his implants. The only known cure for indoctrination was exposure to Thorian spores, and the Thorian was long dead. But there had to be a way to slow the process, some variable that would explain why some could hold out for weeks and others for mere days. I couldn't save Edgar or the others like him, but perhaps I could let them keep more of their minds for longer.

The AI core hummed softly. I dismissed the hologram and prepared to access the extranet. The first thing was to confirm for myself that Oriana was safe and Father was dead. I didn't think the Illusive Man would lie but I still had to know. I'd kept my vow never to contact Oriana, but I had ways of keeping an eye on her even without my network of contacts. I knew her email address. Writing her was out of the question, but I could just take a quick look…

[JUSTIFY. YOUR GOAL IS KILLING COMMANDER SHEPARD]

Damn blocks. _Shepard rescued her. It's possible they've had continued contact. _

[PROCEED]

I'd always been very good with computers, and with the computing power at my disposal, it took only a few minutes to gain access to her account. Relief flooded me. Three days ago, she'd written letters to both her parents and her boyfriend Danner saying that she was safe and "you'd never believe me in a million years if I told you where I was, so please don't ask."

And then I saw the last message she'd written to one . I knew that email very well. It was the dummy account Liara had set up when she wrote to me seeking advice on her quest to become an information broker. I'd written back. There had been no sense in the girl killing herself, especially over a waste of space like Feron. Cerberus had never known, and Liara had become my link to the world beyond Lazarus. Gradually, our conversations had moved from the best ways to launder money to more personal matters. I had never spoken of my father and sister to her, but she'd spoken with enthusiasm about her university days, and I'd introduced her to human classical music.

Cerberus had been very vague about the fates of Jacob, Niket, and even my old mentor Oleg. They were probably dead. But now I knew at least one old friend was alive. I opened the message.

_I know this isn't really an emergency, but Shepard said you and Miranda worked together. Something about hacking some terminals? Everybody talked about what a good information broker you were back when I lived in Nos Astra. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about my sister. Henry talked __about__ her the entire time I was stuck in Sanctuary, but it's not the same. Letters, photos, anything you can find. I didn't even know I had a big sister until after she died. I want to get to know her._

Oh, Oriana. There was nothing she needed to know about me because all I could offer her was a life spent sleeping with one eye open and doing the brutal yet necessary things that would improve the lives of her and every other human. It was better when she didn't even know I existed. Doubly so now. _Hi, Oriana. I'm your sister, except I'm an AI. And any moment Cerberus could give me an order to kill you, and I wouldn't be able to do a thing about it._

It gave me an idea, though. The most obvious way to kill Shepard would be to set a trap for him at a time and location of my choosing. If I were to write to Liara and pass along intel on Cerberus using the same encryption key we had years ago, then I could tempt her into passing that intel along to Shepard. Small details at first. The mystery would be irresistible to Liara. Once I'd established trust, I'd find a way to convince the Illusive Man to allow me access to truly valuable data. I'd pass it to them. And then I would spring the trap. I would bring Shepard here, and there would be a squad of indoctrinated soldiers awaiting him.

Because the Illusive Man was right about one thing: I knew Shepard better than anyone. I knew how very good he was at killing. The odds he would win were better than the odds he would lose. And I would come face-to-face with my creation at last and all the information contained within this station would be his. He might destroy me—the man never had been much for mercy—but there were advantages to no longer caring whether you lived or died. And it would give him the means to truly hamstring Cerberus. It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was something.

And if I was wrong about his combat ability, we were all doomed anyway.

* * *

><p><em>Not 5,000 words but I think the next section deserves its own chapter.<em>

_Some questions: Do you find Miranda sympathetic/relatable? Is there anything I need to clarify regarding her situation?_


End file.
